Description An epic unfolds in a strange new land as Mario and Luigi team up for a hilarious, action-packed quest! An evil witch has stolen Princess Peach's voice, replacing her fair speech with explosives! As chaos breaks out in the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario and Luigi head for the castle and meet up with Bowser, who just arrived to kidnap the princess. When they find out what happened, these sworn enemies join forces and follow the witch to a neighboring kingdom. After an aerial ambush crashes their ship and sends Bowser to who-knows-where, Mario and Luigi embark on foot, learning new moves and combining their brotherly might to fight off enemies, as they venture toward the kingdom's castle.
Summary: RedZero, signing in to save another great video game from bad reviewers. Kindly ignore the last review, or you'll miss out on something great.
If you have ever played Paper Mario, and you have always wanted some kind of incredible sequel or follow-up to that game, look no further! This game has many of the old elements of that game, and more! Either way, even if you haven't played an RPG Mario game, this one will surely keep you entertained.
Of course, expect a pretty terrible plot, like most Mario games. Ok, it may not be terrible, but it is pretty blah. Your mission is to go over to the Bean-Bean kingdom and... once again... (drumroll please)... save Princess Peach. Although the plot does have a few twists, you probably will never care (although this plot is gold compared to some of the other Mario games. For example, in Super Mario Sunshine, you have to collect the "shines" to restore sunlight to some tropical resort island).
It's everything else that you're gonna care about. The graphics are beautiful, especially for a GBA game, with bright graphics and nice character sprites. The effects are really cool, and the gameplay is incredibly varied. The sound is also bearable, maybe even pleasant (most GBA games have horrendous sounds including noisy, out-of-place bleeps, screeches, and bloops, that basically cause almost anyone to play their games on mute. You might actually play the game with the sound a little up, a rare occurence).
The good: Graphics, sound, gameplay
The bad: Story (as usual in a Mario game)
And the ugly: Most of the characters in the game, including the residents of the Bean-Bean kingdom, Cackletta (the head bad guy in the game), her underlings, and the Queen of Bean-Bean kingdom.
Summary: Ok class, how many here have played Super Mario RPG (SNES) and/or Paper Mario (N64)? Ok, good, if you've played those through (I have) then I suggest you DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME on this piece of programming junk! This game which was supposed to be a sequel/next in line to the Mario RPG franchise has got to be one of the most annoying, repetitive games I have ever had the misfortune to own (I own over 400 on 16 systems). Here are my major annoyances which I feel, make the game unbearable.
1. Ridiculous timed, must do events. Unlike many other games that have stupid little side events or games (EX: Blitz Ball on FFX) that you can skip all together, you are force-fed multiple, stupid timed "tasks" that you must perform and pass to move on. Fail? You will do them over and over until you get it right, period. Ridiculous tasks like, "jump over barrels", or "hit 30 boxes in 20 seconds" get old quick. And it doesn't stop, there are tons of them. It was this that made me put the game down, for good. This is NOT an RPG element!
2. Gimmicky jumps. Mario has one special jump, and Luigi has another. Great, wow. You spend 80% of the game toggling between the two to get through the terrain. EX: toggle to Mario, select spin jump, jump, now toggle to Luigi, select high jump, jump to the next ledge, now back to Mario to clear that gap, now back to Luigi………………………….. This does not stop, ever. You will wear out the L&R buttons on this one. Do this 200 times in one hour and you too will get tired of it.
3. Brother this and brother that. Using two different people with two different sets of controls during battle is annoying. The clever battle system in Paper Mario is gone, only a few aesthetic touches remain. Enemy attacks quickly become repetitious and boring, blocking (or dodging) becomes a routine event. Not up to par.
4. Ridiculous plot. This game is referred to as humorous and a comedy in the booklet, that should have tipped me off at the start. Lame, this is the best way to describe the plot.
These elements are not what make a good RPG/adventure game. The two previous titles weren't plagued by stupid, repetitious tasks and elements such as these. Why is this one? Needless to say I am completely disappointed and will not be playing this one through. Anyone want a used copy?
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